Kingston mayor responds to ticketing complaints

Thursday

Jul 3, 2014 at 2:00 AMJul 3, 2014 at 8:21 AM

KINGSTON — Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo released his first comments in response to complaints of overzealous ticketing and parking issues throughout the city at a sparsely attended Common Council meeting Tuesday evening.

James Nani

KINGSTON — Kingston Mayor Shayne Gallo released his first comments in response to complaints of overzealous ticketing and parking issues throughout the city at a sparsely attended Common Council meeting Tuesday evening. In a letter addressed to Alderman-at-large James Noble, Gallo said ticketing has increased, in part, from the filling of a vacant part-time parking attendant position. Though Gallo said the city educates "parking enforcement officers on acceptable parking enforcement methods," Gallo alluded to firing a parking attendant last week in the wake of criticism. "I have made additional staffing changes that I believe will result in noticeably improved enforcement decisions and communication with our parking customers," Gallo said. Carol Galione, who started the petition that gathered 441 signatures from those sick of excessive ticketing and parking issues, said the mayor told her Monday that he fired the parking attendant. Ticketing has gone up significantly from 2013 when 10,330 tickets were given out altogether. As of just early June of this year, 10,840 tickets have been issued. Still, Michelle Elise, owner of Ellipse and a resident in Uptown Kingston, complained that ticketing during record-breaking snowstorms last winter and this summer were bad for business and residents. "As a resident, I'm find the ticketing to be very heavy-handed," Elise said. In his letter, Gallo said the city is in the planning stages of renovating two parking lots — one on North Front Street and one in Midtown off Broadway. Those renovations may ease parking enough to bring down the price of building a full parking garage in Uptown. "The cost of parking spaces, estimated at approximately $20,000 per space, has chilled developer interest in the former parking garage site," Gallo said. "If we can slightly reduce the number of spaces required ... it may help get that project off the ground." Last year, the city put out requests for developers to build a new parking garage in the footprint of one that was torn down years ago because of safety issues. At the time, Gallo said the federal government shutdown had chilled developers from building a garage. In the meantime, Gallo said he plans to look at removing the concrete "bump-outs" in Uptown that currently have benches and planters. He hopes that would create more parking spaces. For next year's budget, Gallo said he plans to look into the cost and feasibility of kiosks and electronic meters to deal with parking issues, though that will be contingent on cost. Galione said while she was happy the mayor responded, the key will be in the follow-through on parking and ticketing. "You need to throw us a bone," Galione said. jnani@th-record.com

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